Battle Report

Opening up a second front

50 POINTS

Warsaw Pact
Baron VS West German
Pelikanen

Surrounding the enemy

Quick Mission - Annihilation - 34 pts

Hauptmann Wilhelm and his skirmish force

*** PREGAME TALK ***

This game has been on the to-do list for a while. It was recoreded a few days ago when I played my friend Pelikanen. We did a game with 3 Leopard 2's facing off against 10 T-72M's.
The game was more for fun and trying the missions out.

We will be playing higher points later in the campaign. Alot of people also mentioned that my West German players/friends don't move around alot with their bigger tanks. They usually hope I won't hit htem with 5+ and that they will hit atleast half of their hits when shooting back. Sadly they miss or fail the FP test giving me a 50/50 to get back into the game with that vehicle.

As the campaign is getting close to the end, we are moving back now to using the missions with some minor modifications.

Setting the mood

Hauptmann Wilhelm had received instructions to reach Niederbayern and get visual confirmation that the line was holding. But also deal with any forces encountered.

He had passed Major Kriegler earlier right before he had gone into actions against a American force of unknown strength. The Major had burned with the same vengeance and rage as many other soldiers of the NVA. They all wanted to rearrange the front line and push it further away from home. Closer to France. The news of his sortie hadn't reach him yet. But he prayed it had been a victory.

Over the radio he heard one of the tank commanders in the front informing him of movements in the forest on the other side of the city. Preparing for the event of combat he sat down into the cupola and closed the hatch and peered down the scopes looking for targets as they rolled in to the city using the wheatfield as cover.

He hoped to meet Major Kriegler on the way back to the Kommendant and was looking forward to swapping war stories of both their successes.

He was greatly disapointed of their shooting, including his own. The forest made it difficult to distinguish the metal vehicles due to their impressive camoflauge. At best they gave the enemy targets to lock on to in the coming return fire.

The vehicle infront of him got nicked from a shell causing a rapture on the fueselage. The crew quickly ran out from the hatch attempting to do battle repairs on the pipe. He saw two tanks on his left having less luck and detonating only seconds after eachother. Atleast now they knew where the enemy was firing from.

The crew infront of him where still continueing repairs, he ordered all vehicle to move forward and engage. He didn't see who made the shot but one of the tanks went up in flames making it easier for everyone to see the enemy.

(Nothing happend in the West Germans shooting phase, so moved it over to my turn) He felt the adrenaline rush in his veins as nothing hit when the enemy fired. He felt the tank rock as it fired and was unhappy when it didn't kill anything. Only to shortly after smile again as he saw the second tank explode and the smoke and fire grew bigger.

A shot rang out and killed the tank infront of him, the crew burning as they rolled around. He turned the cannon against the last tank only to see the enemy turret move slighly to the side mirroring his movement as a threat. He yelled: "ALLE MÄNNER AUS!" He was closest to the hatch and was first out, he turned around to help the second crew member out as the shell hit and he was thrown off from the shock. The shell had hit underneath the tank and thus lowered the energy. But enough to render the tank useless and killing the crew still inside.

He was being dragged by two crew members from Felwebel Hans crew. The tank was firing but the top hatch open. They dragged him inside and he felt that some of his ribs where broken as he breathed. He was brought up to speed that they hadn't been able to deal with the last tank yet. He had reorganized a few of the tanks to fire from more angles. Wilhelm didn't argue, it was a sound tactic. They had hit something on the tank since smoke was forming behind it. Dark, thich smoke. He wouldn't have the strength to the leave this tank if it got hit.

He wasn't watching the battle but listening to the information over the radio. Most of it was correction talk. The enemy tank was still running and had turned its turret to the left flank and according to the information, destroyed one more of his tanks. This skirmish was getting costly. He would have to make a decision to either retreat and cut his losses or see it to its bitter end.

A cheer came out from the tank he currently rested in and from that he understood the enemy Leopard was destroyed. He sense his tensions relax and he spoke into the radio telling everyone good work and that they should look for survivors to bring back to the staging area. The defence in the area was weak. That would go into the report. They needed to plug it with additional reserves and move up the supply line to quicker get support in case of a second breakthrough.

Conclusion / After action report

After having played a few games with Leopard 1 we went on to try the prestine master mind of engineering from the German Bundeswehr. The Leopard 2. A scary tank with all the right modifications.

I have great respect for the Leopard 2 and a moderate respect for the Leopard 1. They still hurt but I get a much higher chance of success and my hits in return can actually go straight for FP.

We both agreed after this that we wanted to do higher points again and have 80-100 pts battle if not even more! I am having more games tomorrow, one American and one West German. Let's see what happens in the next games.